Melbourne Cup Day is Australia’s premier racing event and it is also a very big deal here in New Zealand too.

New Zealand First has been a strong advocate of racing for many, many years. We won’t apologise for that, no matter how often we are attacked on it. Racing is a $1.5 billion industry. It brings New Zealand international attention and business. It could be bigger and better. New Zealand First is proud of its support for the industry.

New Zealanders need to look behind the glossy headlines for the real agenda following the announcement of the National Party’s tax and fiscal policies today. National’s attempts to focus all attention on its ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ tax package is an exercise in sophistry.

The Privileges Committee wasn’t a jury of my peers. For the most part it was just a bunch of politicians with partisan prejudices, who voted along party lines. Some members of the committee were decent enough to go in there with open minds and judge the information as they saw it, but the majority weren’t.